Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Temporada de Caça by Stephen Graham Jones

133 reviews

throwback682's review against another edition

emotional tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The ending was a tearjerker for me. 

Shout out to Chuck Tingle for introducing me to this author. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, and Death of parent

refrejarator's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

The first I've ever read by Jones. Holy hell. It was devastating, it was brutal, and painted a horror story vastly different from any I'd ever read before. Had me freaked out from the first chapter, which is very rare for me! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Murder, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Genocide, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Police brutality, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

Book is written from perspective of Blackfeet Native Americans and therefore includes racism, police brutality, and the impact of genocide and colonisation that is still felt by Indigenous peoples today.

wispy_reviews's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, Racial slurs, Racism, and Death of parent

ahopper7's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was my first Stephen Graham Jones book, and overall I really liked it. I love a good revenge story, and with the culture and themes blended throughout this story, and that ending!! - made for such a horror novel that I think will stay with me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Gore, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Car accident and Alcohol

mnstarr's review against another edition

dark reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Suicide, and Death of parent

Moderate: Body horror, Racism, and Alcohol

Minor: Vomit

emerlees's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Excrement, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

voxvenati's review against another edition

mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a refreshing experience. It was tense, gruesome (at times), and full of heart. 

Two things I was not really expecting going in, that there was quite a lot of: basketball and animal death - specifically

lots of dogs and elk

.

I was not a huge fan of the pacing. Front bit was good, middle dragged, end was good. Perhaps contributing to this, the early parts of the book set up like it was going to be something like four short stories tied together by this vengeful entity, but the second half of the book was not split up. It was all one story at that point. 

Quite a lot of descriptions of gore, some really tense scenes, but just didn’t hit that scary vibe. Unfortunate it couldn’t hit all three points, but I did like SGJ’s style. It flowed quite naturally. 

I liked the entity. I thought she was neat. I wish I had been more on her side, but I just liked some of the characters too much to agree with her. 

Really solid read despite me not knowing or caring about basketball. Not scary, but a little graphic, so maybe check trigger warnings if you use them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gun violence, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Gore, Racism, Violence, and Alcohol

Minor: Pregnancy

stephanieluxton's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

A lot of dogs die or are injured in this book. They don't all die at the same time to it's not like ripping off a bandaid. It's actually pretty upsetting. 

Without giving too much away, this book is about a few native american friends who broke a rule while hunting 10 years ago and now an entity/elk/person/vengeful spirit is hunting them down for revenge. This book follows each of the four friends as they encounter the vengeful spirit.

Something this book did well was giving a unique perspective into the characters lives. It haven't read many books about modern day native americans/indians but I felt the characters were written well. Nothing felt super political.

The story starts off with mysterious things happening to Lewis and it's a lot of fun watching his paranoia grow. Then the story gets dark and something crazy happens.

Basically all the main characters are killed violently. I actually enjoyed how shocking this part was.

T

The second half of the story introduces Lewis's old friends in more detail. Some of the pacing gets weird here. This is when I stopped having fun reading. Theres a lot or time spent talking about basketball even though it's not very relevant. When we start to see the spirit, what I was imagining in my head while reading was so goofy that I couldn't feel scared or appreciate any tense moments.

The spirit is described as a woman with an elks head and I kept picturing a woman wearing one of those goofy plastic horse masks chasing the characters.

My biggest problem with this book that is

that I didn't feel like there was any justice. None of these characters deserved to die.

Now to spoil the general story so that I can elaborate on my previous sentence:

Four indian friends go into the woods 10 years ago to hunt elk but all the elk are in an area of the woods that is restricted to them. It's near the end of the season so they decide t go and find a large herd. They kill multiple elk and Lewis kills one that has eyes that almost look human to him. She fights to live but he kills her and finds out the elk was pregnant. He vows to use evey part of the elk as a sign of respect and remorse. They are discovered and kicked out of the woods, forbidden from hunting ever again by the elders on the reservation. 10 years later the spirit of the elk (disguised as a human or elk/human hybrid depending on the day, begins hunting them and killing them one by one. She doesn't just kill Lewis, who was her killer. She (directly or indirectly) kills Lewis, his dog, wife, and his friend from work. They she kills the other men who were on the hunting trip as well as their dogs and basically anyone else they care about or who just happen to be in the area at the time. None of these people were evil. Most of them were just living their lives the best they knew how to. It's not a satisfying tale of revenge.

In the end, I have no idea what exactly this book was trying to say. I also have no idea why it's named what it is.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Blood, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Sexual content

karthnemesis's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Racism, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

klabardee's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Blood, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Gore and Cultural appropriation

Minor: Police brutality and Colonisation